take your answer off the air...

Talker's MagazineThe quirky talk radio trade mag. Check the Talk Radio Research Project- it's not very scientific, but places on the top 15 talkers list (scroll down to Talk Radio Audiences By Size)) are as hotly contested as Emmys (and mean just about as much).

The AdvocateNo, not THAT Advocate... it's the Northwest Progressive Institute's Official Blog.

Media MattersDocumentation of right-wing media in video, audio and text.

Orcinushome of David Neiwert, freelance investigative journalist and author who writes extensively about far-right hate groups

Hominid Views"People, politics, science, and whatnot"
Darryl is a statistician who fights imperialism with empiricism, gives good links and wry commentary.

Jesus' General An 11 on the Manly Scale of Absolute Gender, a 12 on the Heavenly Scale of the 10 Commandments and a 6 on the earthly scale of the Immaculately Groomed.

Irrational Public Radio "informs, challenges, soothes and/or berates, and does so with a pleasing vocal cadence and unmatched enunciation. When you listen to IPR, integrity washes over you like lava, with the pleasing familiarity of a medium-roast coffee and a sensible muffin."

The Moderate VoiceThe voice of reason in the age of Obama, and the politics of the far-middle.

News Hounds Dogged dogging of Fox News by a team who seems to watch every minute of the cable channel so you don't have to.

HistoryLinkFun to read and free encyclopedia of Washington State history. Founded by the late Walt Crowley, it's an indispensable tool and entertainment source for history wonks and surfers alike.

right-wing blogs we like

The Reagan WingHearin lies the real heart of Washington State Republicans. Doug Parris runs this red-meat social conservative group site which bars no holds when it comes to saying who they are and who they're not; what they believe and what they don't; who their friends are and where the rest of the Republicans can go. Well-written, and flaming.

June 30, 2012

This open thread is constitutional!

from Huffington Post:

Not all Republican state lawmakers took such a hardline against the ACA’s implementation. The Salt Lake Tribune reported that Utah Gov. Gary Herbert plans to follow federal health care mandates for the time being, while refusing “to do something that is going to bust our budget” in the future.

Former Office of Management and Budget director and Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, who plans to step down at the end of his term, took what on the surface seems a more moderate approach. Daniels said he would leave the decision on a possible Medicaid expansion to future state legislators.

Some GOP lawmakers have expressed their view that compliance with some key aspects of the health care law is a way to ensure at least some state control over the process. As CBS News reports, Republican Colorado state legislator Bob Gardner argued that by moving forward on the creation of insurance exchanges “Colorado did the right thing by having a mechanism to do its best to impose a Colorado solution.”

In a similar statement, Michigan Republican Gov. Rick Snyder expressed his belief that “working with our legislative leaders to establish the MiHealth Marketplace will allow Michiganders to make decisions regarding what will be covered as opposed to Washington, D.C., making those decisions for us.”

Washington AG and Republican Gubanatorial candidate Rob McKenna announced in a speech this week that it was not a good idea for Republicans to pour a lot of time and money into trying to get the law overturned. "McKenna notified media across the state that he would be speaking about the US Supreme Court’s decision to uphold most of the Affordable Care Act. McKenna was one of 26 state attorneys general who sued to block the Affordable Care Act. But when Stranger reporter ( and close personal friend to Blatherwatch) David “Goldy” Goldstein arrived for the press conference at McKenna’s downtown Seattle offices, a guard was waiting for him. Cameramen, radio people, and reporters were granted free entry. Goldy was prevented from entering. "They are physically blocking me from entering," Goldy said by phone to The Stranger, seven minutes before the 11:30 a.m. press conference was scheduled to begin. A spokesman for McKenna, Dan Sytman, had told Goldy a few minutes before that Goldy wasn’t a journalist and then blocked him from entering. A McKenna staffer had also grabbed Goldy by the shoulders and turned him away from the door. "More about that here.

On the March 26th episode of The O'Reilly Factor, host Bill O'Reilly told American Constitution Society president Caroline Fredrickson that she was "going to lose" her argument that the individual mandate was a constitutionally-sound tax and "does not require people to buy health insurance." At the end of the segment, O'Reilly vowed to replay the interview and "apologize for being an idiot" if the Supreme Court ruled in favor of upholding the mandate.

Sorry...too subtle. Let me say directly what I was just hinting at:
There are a whole lot of people who are outraged over Social Security and Medicare, but have no plans on turning it down when it comes to their own checks. I am related to, work with and live next to a lot of them. The Republican "plan" regardless of authorship is all about taking away from those who can least afford to lose anything and then giving to people who have much. It's not what I will support. Pretty simple.

This should be a vibrant thread. Too bad my censored posts weren't moved here. They were pretty informative.

BTW, KS, where's the names of all those RINO's you promised? You know, the ones who have rebelled at Grover's Pledge? Hmmm? Your herd is so well controlled that Snow actually retired rather than vote her conscience.

Sorry...too subtle. Let me say directly what I was just hinting at:
There are a whole lot of people who are outraged over Social Security and Medicare, but have no plans on turning it down when it comes to their own checks. I am related to, work with and live next to a lot of them. The Republican "plan" regardless of authorship is all about taking away from those who can least afford to lose anything and then giving to people who have much. It's not what I will support. Pretty simple.

Posted by: sparky | June 30, 2012 at 09:13 PM

sounds like the folks who want a higher tax rate but when you ask them to pay more in taxes they refuse.

The Republican "plan" regardless of authorship is all about taking away from those who can least afford to lose anything and then giving to people who have much. It's not what I will support. Pretty simple.

Posted by: sparky | June 30, 2012 at 09:13 PM

Wrong post - I did not even address that in my last comment. Pretty simple ? Not really, it just shows that you being are simplistic. using scare tactics and your assumptions are wrong.

I posted an article. I doubt if you have bothered to read it comprehensively ? You aren't fooling anyone except yourself if you think you are being open-minded. Why should I or anyone in their right mind support a Health Care redistribution tax that will fund a plan for maybe 10 years, then become unsustainable with decreasing quality approaching the UK HC system ?

The president has been an unconscionable liar about the merits this plan brings (I don't apologize for saying what is true) - it's safe to say you have no idea how much this will bleed your income as a tradeoff for getting health care, like you already get. Do you know how much your taxes will increase next year and every year beyond to contribute to this Leviathan ? Have you read about how Europe views the ACA ? (Hint: Not good) Are you ignorant about your financial well-being in the future being that probably won't be getting much SS ? Apparently !

Sorry, I really don't care about who violated Grover's pledge. The problem is that they are all politicians and often their signatures aren't worth much more than the paper they are written on - R or D - OK ?

In an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press" slated to air Sunday, Pelosi says Republicans from Mitt Romney to members of Congress are "being the mouthpiece of the health care industry" when they talk about reversing the Affordable Care Act.

Pelosi says the act puts people "in charge of how they receive coverage and health care."

She said Republicans "will ask for repeal, repeal of all the things ... that help children, help young adults, help seniors, help men or women who may have prostate cancer, breast cancer, whatever it is, any precondition. And everybody will have lower rates, better quality care and better access."
"So that's what they want to repeal," she said. "we're happy to have that debate."

You can't make this stuff up ! The people are in charge of their health care ? The old beyotch is delusional and distorting the truth once again. The Government is in charge, not the people !

She said Republicans "will ask for repeal, repeal of all the things ... that help children, help young adults, help seniors, help men or women who may have prostate cancer, breast cancer, whatever it is, any precondition. And everybody will have lower rates, better quality care and better access."

She has taken a page out of Joseph Goebbel's playbook - tell a lie often enough and some people will believe it to be true. She forgot to say push grandma over the cliff. The last sentence is a blatant lie, even she is not stupid enough to believe what she is saying...

With that said, the House is wasting their time voting on repeal because it will go no where when it gets to the Senate. They should save the vote for when it has more relevance.

Conservatives have had a series of extreme reactions to the Supreme Court’s Thursday decision to uphold the constitutionality of Obamacare’s individual health care mandate: from charging that Chief Justice John Roberts’s epilepsy medication caused him to support the majority opinion, to calling for an armed rebellion against the Court.

Now, the Merrimack Patch reports that a Tea Party leader in New Hampshire is wishing cancer on the justices:

Former Town Councilor Mike Malzone, the founder of the Merrimack Tea Party, said Thursday in a Facebook post reacting to the Supreme Court ruling on health care, “I hope the (5 supremes) get colon cancer.”

A day after posting the message, Malzone said he stands by what he said. He clarified that he doesn’t want anyone to die, and the cancer reference was more to make a point that he wants them to feel the pain being inflicted on Americans being overburdened by taxes.

“I didn’t wish for anyone to die, but I said I do wish for them to feel our pain,” he said. “No one cares about me, they all make their promises and then go do what they goddamn feel."

I see a future problem with the polarization from both sides. Few people closer to the middle who are often the most reasonable. Polarization can only lead to the internal weakening of this country.

There have to be some compromises and bipartisan agreement OR this nation will fall into darker times. Big government and the corruption that always comes along with it cannot achieve this. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely - human nature. However this election turns out, we hold our destiny in our own hands. Intellectual laziness is driving us down the road of darkness.

Justice Roberts' will either be seen as a hero or a goat by many depending on the outcome of the Presidential election for moderates and conservatives. He is out of the doghouse in the eyes of the left.

David Gregory grilled Pelosi today but she answered every question with grace and specifics. Something Romney has yet to do. She is a remarkable leader. We are lucky to have her.

The consensus I'm hearing is that Roberts had to find a way to vote that would keep his Court from going down in history as the most polarized and thus a joke. He's smart. He didn't have much choice in the end. He didn't want his Court to look like a bunch of idiots. And like Machiavelli, he found a way to do it that that any intelligent rightwinger should respect.

Denying Goldy entry into the meeting speaks volumes. So McKenna doesn't think The Stranger is journalistic. As a reader of The Stranger myself, I hope that gets some play. McKenna is the teacher's pet, the brass-buttoned fair-haired boy. That was a slap in the face to us ordinary people - the "little people." And the practice of turning people away reminds me of Bush/Cheney tactics. That should scare anyone.

No argument that this country has been polarized back to when Reagan was President, yet it has become progressively worse since then and shows no sign of letting up.

David Gregory is a sycophant for Obama as you show to be T-S. He lobbed her softballs - it was pathetic and easily saw through it and he sympathized to her lack of intelligence. Contrast that to when he has on conservatives like Paul Ryan (who can hold his own) or Marco Rubio. He is small in comparison to Tim Russert, who was tough to both sides. Mr. Greory, What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

Justice Roberts will be respected by a majority of Americans eventually, as he struck down the commerce clause part of the Health Care Redistribution Tax and Medicaid expansion. Those rulings bode well in the future for Limited Government.

Just because it is under the tax code doesn't mean it is a typical tax. It is in a sub-category of tax called a penalty and it isn't distributed widely nor does it have enforcement.

Thom Hartmann gave an interesting talk about the tax. Roberts really did give the right a bigger favor that I understood: by putting it under the tax code, attempts to change it cannot be filabustered by the left and it can go under reconciliation which doesn't need a super majority to pass but only 51 votes. If the right takes control of the senate, we could see the end of Obamacare that quickly.

Waxman actually told the truth for a change - I'm shocked. Roberts did throw a curve ball - no question.

One bad consequence is that there is no limit in the Fed. Government's taxing authority. I harken back to PJ O'Rourke quote about the staggering price tag for "Free" Healthcare. The 16,000 new IRS agents are coming in force after your wallets if this pig with lipstick on it by the SCOTUS is allowed to stand.

The president continues to have a difficult time with the truth as found by Fact-check. Same old shit...

"Obama accuses Romney in a series of TV ads of being a “corporate raider” who “shipped jobs to China and Mexico,” asking if voters want to elect an “outsourcer in chief.” But some of the claims in the ads are untrue, and others are thinly supported.

Bain Capital, the venture capital firm founded by Romney in 1984, is the focus of the Obama campaign’s attacks. There is no question that Bain invested in some companies that helped other companies outsource work and that some of that work went overseas. That was the core business for Modus Media and SMTC Corp. — two outsource companies featured in a June 21 article in the Washington Post that has been the basis of recent Obama TV ads. Bain also invested in U.S.-based companies that sold goods manufactured here and abroad, and some of those companies closed U.S. facilities and eliminated U.S. jobs.

But after reviewing numerous corporate filings with the Securities and Exchange
Commission, contemporary news accounts, company histories and press releases, and the
evidence offered by both the Obama and Romney campaigns, we found no evidence to support the claim that Romney — while he was still running Bain Capital — shipped American jobs overseas."

"The 16,000 new IRS agents are coming in force after your wallets if this pig with lipstick on it by the SCOTUS is allowed to stand."

That number is wildly inflated. It will likely be less than half of that. The GOP is basing the number (16,000) on payroll spending only (they forgot to figure in all other administrative costs like desks, computers, office equipment, also pay raises, etc)

You really shouldn't rely on Limbaugh and other party leaders for factual info.

That number is wildly inflated. It will likely be less than half of that. The GOP is basing the number (16,000) on payroll spending only (they forgot to figure in all other administrative costs like desks, computers, office equipment, also pay raises, etc)

You really shouldn't rely on Limbaugh and other party leaders for factual info.

Posted by: Mike D | July 02, 2012 at 07:09 PM

Show me the documentation that backs up your assertion. Even 10,000 is a huge number.

It was a provision in Obamacare. Why don't you take some time and read the stupid bill and find it ?

ADA standards the Bush-41 signed have turned out to be big can of worms that is ever expanding. In retrospect, O'Rourke was correct. A smaller less expansive version would have been quite sufficient if the politicians had not been fueled by special interests to line their pockets and absent of decency and common sense. Somehow this country survived well for 215 years before they were approved !

He said the IRS hadn’t yet figured out what staffing levels would be required... But that scary claim of 16,500 new agents simply lacks any foundation in fact.

Update, Feb. 22: The Treasury Department on Feb. 14 released the IRS budget request for fiscal year 2012 that shows the agency is seeking 1,269 full-time equivalent employees (FTEs) at a cost of $473 million to help implement the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. That includes 291 IRS agents, most of them (193) to "ensure accurate delivery of tax credits."

Umm, let's round it off and conclude that the GOP estimate is about 14,500 agents off. Agree?

Truth is, the Republicans will be against this for as long as they can uphold the talking points. When the reality supersedes the Republican scheme the Republicans will try to take credit for the potential of Obamacare. As they did during the Obamabailouts.

Did any one else catch John Curley's friday before Fahter's Day Show? He told a long story about painting the Curley vacation house for his father to try to get money for his acting "headshots". Old Dad came down to the house and ridiculed him for getting paint on the rug after John had already checked with him on the phone about that and was told that it was ok to slop paint on the carpet since it was rotten anyway and would be thrown out. Clearly his Dad was being an asshole and a bully, from what I gathered. After this unfair, abusive tirade by Dear old Dad, Curley threw a fit and threw paint all over the room. OK fine. I'll go along with that. This next part of the story is what I have a problem with. Curley sais he picked up a shovel and hit his Dad with the shovel, knocking him on his ass. Although i would never do anything like this, without much, much more provocaiton than what Curley detailed in his exposition of the story, one could perhaps argue that he was provoked enough to justify this. But he went further . He hit his father again with the shovel, this time striking his forehead witthe sharp edge of the shovel bottom, cutting the skin, apparently to a minor dgree. Dad threatened him, saying that if Curley dared strike him again he would regret it the rest of his life. After this John dropped the shovel, grabbed some of his dads money out of the dresser and ran out of the house, like a common smalltime crimina. Later he hopped a bus to NYC. This second hit of his father with the shovel was the act of a rotten punk and a criminal and he should have been put in jail for it. This Curley fellow is a lowlife who openly admitted on the air that he cheated on his SAT exams, and now we hear this additional example of his white trash hoodlum character. He is literally a lucky bum who somwhow managed to avoid the jail and prison cells that were awaiting him with open arms, and managed to make a decent living in local televion here and later auctioneering. No matter to me. I still see this guy as a straight up punk and a bum.

KVI am 570 KHz Visit the burnt-out husk of one of the seminal right-wing talkers in all the land. Here's where once trilled the reactionary tones of Rush Limbaugh, John Carlson, Kirby Wilbur, Mike Siegel, Peter Weissbach, Floyd Brown, Dinky Donkey, and Bryan Suits.
Now it's Top 40 hits from the '60's & '70's aimed at that diminishing crowd who still remembers them and can still hear.

KTTH am 770 KHzRight wing home of local, and a whole bunch of syndicated righties such as Glennn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Medved, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Lars Larsony, and for an hour a day: live & local David Boze.